Think about the boring guy at the sailing class. Later on you find out he's a doctor, or a builder, or a fraud investigator or a republican or likes watching hockey or went to college at Stanford. What if he didn't tell you any of that until you had known him for a couple of weeks or even months during the course of that sailing class vs if he had told you that all up front?

I usually find that nobody's eyes light up and get excited when I tell them I work as a software developer. I'm now a nerd, or too smart, or boring, or a member of the "technical professional" social class.

If I had some really exciting job like being a movie star, I'd be stuck having to repeat answers to the same frequently asked questions every time I met someone new. The idea of the zen levels is to get to know other people first as humans before socially categorizing them. It's about showing them your personality instead of telling them all your credentials up front.

That's a fair goal, but I think the strict adherence to only certain conversation topics wont come off as mysterious. I think it will come off as creepy or boring. For me, being mysterious is being involved in any conversation in a way that everyone enjoys and only later realize that you didn't reveal anything about yourself in it.

But when would he tell you those things if he kept at Level 4 all the time? When you just happened to run into him at a hockey match or a Republican meeting?